A Gift From a Friend
by GoldenEraDreaming
Summary: Puck and Rachel have always wanted a child one day. When a string of tragic events pull them away from having a child of their own, they must find other ways to become parents. Even asking for help from a very close friend along the way. Future Puckleberry Fic also includes Tike.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Everyone has a purpose in life, a purpose for being on this planet and from an early age Rachel always knew that her purpose in life was to perform. Broadway was what she always had her eyes on and although she knew she certainly had the talent for it, she also very well knew that dreams, didn't always come true.

But here she was at 28, living in her dream city, working her dream job living in her dream house with her dream man, Noah Puckerman.

The road to their life together was nowhere near easy. It took them years to realize that they were meant for each other….hell, they barely even kept in touch after high school except for the annual Glee club reunions that they had over holiday breaks while in college and of course there were the occasional Facebook messages, but with Rachel at NYADA and Puck back home and going to college in Lima, they never really spent much time together.

That all changed when Puck had decided to move to New York after college to try get some of his screenplays sold to major film production companies. One would think that L.A. would be a more suitable place for screenwriters, but Puck had already been there after high school and decided it just wasn't for him, so this time he wanted to take a bite out of the 'Big Apple.'

Everyone knew that Puck had moved to New York when his current city changed from Lima to New York on his Facebook account. Rachel, Kurt, and Santana met up with him for dinner and drinks one night and soon Puck was spending his free time with them more and more.

Rachel and Puck became somewhat of a support group for each other because showbiz was a cutthroat business and more doors slammed in their faces than opened. When Rachel was turned down for a roll, Puck consoled her and when another production company turned down one of Puck's screenplays, Rachel was there to comfort him. They were each other's rock and eventually, both of their careers began to take off and eventually, they became more than just old friends.

Puck and Rachel got married a few years in a traditional Jewish ceremony and moved into a spacious apartment in Upper Manhattan with two additional bedrooms because they knew that they always wanted to have a couple of "Good looking, talented, badass, Jewish kids" as Puck would always say and they wanted an apartment suitable enough for a family and not just a childless couple.

A few months before their two year wedding anniversary, Puck and Rachel found out that they were expecting and made an appointment for a pre-natal appointment as soon as possible. It was at that appointment where the overjoyed couple saw their child for the first time during an ultrasound. Not being able to keep the news to themselves any longer, Puck and Rachel posted the ultrasound picture of what looked like a tiny peanut, up on their Facebook accounts with the caption, "Baby Puckerman, coming in March!"

Despite of her pregnancy, Rachel continued to perform on Broadway, telling her director that she wanted to stay on until her 'baby bump' began to show, ignoring her doctor's orders to "take things easy" during the first trimester of the pregnancy.

It had been four weeks to the day since Puck and Rachel announced their pregnancy via Facebook. Rachel was rehearsing the final musical routine of the show when she lost her footing and fell hard onto her right side. Thinking nothing of it she went about her day until later that night when her lower back began to ache, getting worse and worse as the night progressed.

Worried about her condition Rachel woke Puck from his deep sleep.

"Babe, are you okay?" Puck asked drowsily.

"Noah, I think that fall I took in rehearsal was harder than I thought. This back ache is starting to become slightly uncomfortable…I don't know, maybe we should go to the hospital as a precaution."

They took a cab to the nearest hospital and arrived at the Emergency Room and signed in. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, they were called into an observation room.

An older woman walked into the room and introduced herself. "Hello, Rachel. I'm Dr. Waller and I'm an attending physician here in the ER." She held her hand out and shook Rachel's hand.

"Hello Dr. This is my husband, Noah." Puck stood from his seat and stood next to Rachel's bedside.

"Hi, Noah. Now Rachel, from your chart, I see that you are currently ten weeks pregnant and that you had a hard fall earlier today and are now experiencing lower back pain."

Rachel nodded in agreement and watched as the doctor drew up some paper work.

"Rachel, I'm going to run a few tests on you just to make sure everything is okay with the baby. The nurse will be in to collect some blood and urine samples and once the results are back from the lab I will be back in to discuss any findings." Dr. Waller walked out of the room leaving Puck and Rachel to themselves. Until a young nurse came in to collect samples from Rachel and notified them that it may take an hour or longer for the results.

After an hour later, Rachel started to become antsy. "I can't take this anymore Noah. I want to know what's going on. It's absurd that we have to wait so long." A worried look was spreading across Rachel's face as she sat up in bed wringing her hands.

Puck grabbed Rachel's hands to calm her. "I know. I'm getting impatient as hell too babe, but there are a lot of patients here tonight, so I'm sure the lab is really busy. Just sit tight. I'm right here with you."

Rachel sighed and took a deep breath to help her calm down. A knock was heard on the door and both she and Puck looked up to see Dr. Waller.

"Rachel, Noah. I have the results of your urine and blood tests…Rachel your HcG levels have dropped dramatically."

Rachel shook her head, "I uh…I don't understand. What does that even mean?"

"Your HcG levels are your pregnancy hormone levels and they've dropped to below normal. There's no easy way to put this…I'm terribly sorry Rachel, but I'm afraid you had a miscarriage, an incomplete miscarriage meaning that there are parts of the fetus still remaining in you, so we need to schedule a D & C to remove the rest of the fetus. I'll leave you two alone for a little bit."

Rachel let out a soft whimper as tears burned her eyes. "No" was the only word she let out before sobbing into Puck's arms.

Puck held Rachel close clenching his eyes closed to stop himself from crying. In these last few moments, they realized how possible it was to love something that barely even existed. However, as hard as it was….they would get through this. They may have lost their child, but they still had each other and they knew that they could always try to conceive another child again because things could only get so bad before getting better…Besides, lightning never strikes the same place twice, right?

But they couldn't be anymore wrong. Lightning can strike at the same place twice and cause even more damage than the first time it strikes.

A week after her D & C, Rachel had her follow up appointment. Puck went with her for support and to find out when they could start trying to get pregnant again. It was at that appointment that they found out that Rachel had developed scar tissue in her uterus as a result of the D & C, meaning she would never be able to conceive again.

At 28, Rachel and Puck were living their dream lives, in their dream city, working their dream jobs, but they wanted one more thing to complete their dream and now they weren't sure if they could ever get it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Puck woke up from his sleep. It was still dark in his room meaning that it had to be extremely early in the morning. He felt for his phone on the nightstand to the left of him. '2:30' was what the clock read. He ran his hand over his face and pulled himself to sit up in bed. The bed felt lighter to him and it wasn't until then he realized that he was in bed alone. Puck let out a sigh as he looked over Rachel's side of the bed, her pillow still untouched for the night. This however, wasn't a surprise to Puck. This was how his nights have been playing out the last week or so, since finding about Rachel's sudden infertility.

Feeling thirsty, Puck rose from his bed and walked out into the kitchen. The entire house was dark and the only light Puck had was the light coming from the fridge as he grabbed a bottle of water. He walked around their apartment making stops in every room looking for Rachel, taking gulps from his water bottle along the way. When all the rooms in their apartment had been searched and Rachel was still nowhere to be found, Puck knew that there was only one place she could be.

As he made his way to their apartment's roof top, Puck wondered why he didn't go straight over there to look for her in the first place. The roof top was their own little sanctuary. It was the place where he and Rachel would just sit and talk for hours about the most random things as they stared out at the New York skyline and even though the loud sounds of the city could be heard from the roof top, it would always seem tranquil and calming to them whenever they were up there.

He found Rachel standing by the ledge of the roof top with her arms crossed under her chest. Her hair was down and was gently being blown by a light, warm, summer breeze. She had on a matching tank top and pajama set and despite the circumstances, Puck was still mesmerized by Rachel's beauty. She must have sensed that he was there because she turned her gaze away from New York skyline to his direction without saying a word.

Puck walked towards her as he spoke, "Babe, you ready to come to bed yet?"

"I suppose I am, Noah, but yet again, it's not like I have to be anywhere in the morning." Rachel's director had given her time off after learning about what happened. She was hesitant about taking time off, but the entire production staff insisted and she was pretty certain her under study was eager to take over anyway.

"Well, maybe we can do something tomorrow. Anything you wanna do babe. Just let me know." Puck suggested hopefully. He knew that being cooped up at home was only making her hurt more.

"I guess that wouldn't be such a terrible idea, being that I haven't left the house since-" Rachel looked away as her voice trailed off not being able to finish her sentence. She didn't need to. Puck already knew what she was going to say and there was no use bringing that day up right now.

"Got any ideas on what you feel like doing?"

"No. Maybe I'll figure it tomorrow. I think I'm actually feeling exhausted enough to sleep now." Rachel walked passed him and made her way back into their apartment and Puck followed. As they finally reached their bedroom, Rachel slowly crawled into bed and lied on her left side. Puck lied down beside her with the front of his body pressed against the back of hers. He placed his arm around her waist.

"I love you, Rachel."

"I love you too, Noah." With that Rachel let herself listen to the sound of Puck breathing softly beside her and allowed it to slowly lead her into a much needed slumber and within a few minutes she was out.

Puck knew Rachel was asleep when he heard her snoring very quietly. Something that she did only when she was really tired. He smiled to himself as listened to her snore. He loved everything about his wife, even the little quirky things like this that only he knew about and he couldn't help, but wonder when he would see that side of her again. All he knew was that he hoped it would happen sooner rather than later. For the past week, Puck felt like he was living with a zombie. The Rachel who was lying in his bed, wasn't the Rachel that he knew. The Rachel that he knew, was fiery and fierce, filled with passion and enthusiasm. Now, she was turning into a recluse.

When they found out that Rachel was unable to have children, Puck knew that Rachel wasn't going to take it well, but he didn't think that she would completely sweep it under a rug and refuse to talk about the situation. Yeah, it was painful to think about and of course, it would be even more painful to talk about, but he knew that keeping emotions bottled up was unhealthy and he was worried about Rachel, worried that she would explode one day from all the pain she was keeping inside and Puck knew that he had to get her to open up to him. Because he can't help her get through this if she won't allow him to.

For now, Puck was just going to enjoy the little triumph he felt for Rachel actually wanting to leave the house tomorrow and he was hoping that this would be the first sign of her emotional recovery, signaling a new beginning for them. He was not going to let Rachel's infertility stop them from having the family they have always dreamed of.

Puck gently planted a kiss on the back of Rachel's head, not wanting to wake her as he pulled her even closer to his body.

"It's going to be okay, babe. I promise you." Puck thought to himself as he closed his eyes and surrendered into his sleep.

**A/N: Apologies for taking so long to update. I kept re-writing because I wasn't satisfied and sorry my chapters are so short, this being my first fic, I'm still trying to get the hang of this. I'm happy to see that I have quite a few followers. Thank you all so much and please, please, review. It will help inspire me to continue. Let me know what you think.**


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